


Surviving

by takingovermidnight



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, Enjolras Is Bad At Feelings, Eventual Enjolras/Grantaire, Everyone is Dead, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Fugitives, How Do I Tag, M/M, Post-Barricade, Resentment, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2019-12-26 09:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18280685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takingovermidnight/pseuds/takingovermidnight
Summary: In which Grantaire sleeps through the final battle and does not wake until the national guard has left.





	1. The Living and the Dead

The room that just moments before was filled with the sounds of soldiers’ boots pounding, desperate revolutionaries shouting, and the firing of guns had become completely devoid of any trace of human life in a matter of minutes. The room now appeared more as ancient ruins, indicative of a world lost to time. It appeared as though perhaps people resided in the room at one point, but that point was far in the past, lost to centuries of dilapidation and decay. The wood was splintered, and the interior was completely gutted leaving behind an empty husk of history. Only the four bodies lying on the floor revealed that recently there was life on the top floor of the musain. Only the wet blood on the ground revealed that the room was anything other than a whimsical relic of the past. 

A bright light flooded through the singular large window at the end of the room and tinted the entire space with a distinct yellowish glow. The last of the clouds from the previous night’s rain had finally parted upon the end of the battle, leaving behind a bright summer’s day—the peace that follows war, or in this case, rebellion. 

Unbeknownst to the now dead revolutionaries lying on the floor and the long departed soldiers who killed them, there was all along a single life in the room: one lone man, passed out drunk in the corner, hidden behind the bar, and completely oblivious to the battle that had unfolded just moments before just footsteps away from him. It was not the sound of yelling and gunshots that woke this lone man from his drunken slumber, but the lack thereof. 

Peeking his head up from around the bar, Grantaire studied the room around him. Other than the blinding light and the utter disappearance of any background noise, seemingly nothing had changed about the room from the time that he had fallen asleep. It was still stripped on all furniture, the floors were still as dusty as ever, and there were still the few specks of white paint that had not yet chipped off of the walls over all the years that the old building had stood. He did not see the bodies on the ground as the immovable wooden bar in front of him had cut them out of his peripheral, but the silence alone told him exactly what had happened. The war was over, and his side had lost. Not that he had ever expected victory in the first place, after all he did sleep through the final battle.

He propped his arm against the wall, and pushed himself up. He had drank his weight in wine the previous night and it’s effects had not yet worn off. He nearly fell to floor once he got up, but somehow he miraculously managed to find his footing without falling back onto the ground. He rubbed his eyes, still having to adjust them to the sun’s bright rays. Squinting his eyes as he stared towards the sunlight window ahead. He took wobbly steps forwards until he got to the window and he looked outside, while keeping in mind that he should not dare look down. He may have been intoxicated, but even without a functioning brain he knew better than to gaze upon the fallen barricade. They were his friends after all, and while he had always known that they never stood a chance surviving the rebellion, he did not wish to see the proof of it. Instead he looked straight ahead at the building across the alleyway. A mirror of the one that he was in, expect that instead of a bar it was an inn, well the remains of one anyway. Its glass windows had been shot through completely. The only thing that remained was a dirty, tattered, blue white and red striped flag hanging from the windowsill. 

He let out a sigh, it would not be long until the national guard came back to clean up the mess that they had created. So he turned around and began on his journey out of the musain and back to his own apartment. He took only a few steps on his way out until he nearly tripped on the ground below him. Only then, did he look down. Not to the bodies mangled on the barricade outside, but the ones that had been in the room with him that whole time.

“Joly,” he whispered softly, but in contrast to the pre-existing silence he may as well have been screaming at the top of his lungs. He did not crouch down, nor did he continue on his way. He just stood exactly where he was with his shoe still resting against the death man’s arm and stared without really processing what he saw before him. He knew that he should continue on his way. He already knew that all of his friends were long dead and that there was no point in tilting his head a few degrees to see which ones laid beside the poor Joly, but Grantaire could not help himself. There was some feeling inside of him, that the massacre had never really happened, despite the manifest evidence before him that proved that it really did. 

The four men laid in a line, as though before they were shot they were all huddled together, praying to somehow be saved in their final moments. They laid slightly ontop of eachother, each body overlapping like dominoes that had been knocked down one after the other. Joly, Combeferre, Enjolras, then Courfeyrac all laid side by side. Grantaire took no more than three more steps before falling onto his knees. Enjolras’ golden curls brushed against his knees, as he sat on the ground staring at the body before him without taking in anything at all—seeing without perceiving.

Breaking the reestablished silence, he wept. His sobs were soft, but were by no means silent. The national guard would be back at any moment, but he no longer cared to leave. He had abandoned his plan of escaping the battle unscathed the moment that he saw Enjolras’ body on the ground. It was too late for him to be a martyr for the cause like Enjolras would have wanted, but it was not too late for him to join his friends in the afterlife. So he sat there waiting for the national guard to come and finish the job, weeping the whole time.

His breaths were so heavy that they moved Enjolras as well. The motion of his knees pressing ever so slightly against the dead man’s head were enough to animate Enjolras to the point where he almost appeared to have some sort of life in him as well. It was almost as though Enjolras was breathing himself. 

As much as Grantaire would have liked to entertain the thought of Enjolras’ lungs still bearing breath, he had always been a cynic and holding onto such a ridiculous idea was about as idealistic as he could possibly get. The national guard showed no mercy, and it was evident that they had not left until every last revolutionary they could see before them was dead, but still, Grantaire could not shake the possibility from his head. As illogical as it was, he wanted to believe that the one thing he cared about, would live on. 

To put his dreaded idealism at bay Grantaire decided to indulge himself, in hopes of proving to himself once and for all that nothing, Enjolras included, was worth believing in. So he leaned over the body, put his ear to Enjolras’ face, and held his own breath to mask any intruding noise. 

When Grantaire felt a light, but distinguishable breath against the side of his ear he jolted back as though the side of his head had been caressed by a ghost. Now he stared at Enjolras clearly, with wide eyes, making sure to perceive every motion. As he really studied the body, he did notice the way it differed from the others. There was a slight rise and fall of Enjolras’ chest that none of the other boys laying in the line mimicked.

In a burst of energy from his newly found hope, Grantaire attempted to lift Enjolras from the ground in some attempt to carry him out of the musain and rescue him from the national guard. However, after only managing to get Enjolras’ torso off of the ground, the task proved to be much more difficult than anticipated. The limp body was practically immovable, and Grantaire may as well have been tasked with carrying a boulder because, as skinny as Enjolras was, there was no way Grantaire was going to be able to lift him off of the ground. 

With this new roadblock, he had to devise a new plan. Grantaire could not simply leave Enjolras lying on the ground waiting to die knowing that there was a chance that he could survive; it simply was not ethical. Grantaire nudged the body as hard as he could without inflicting any pain onto Enjolras. Trying the wake the nearly dead revolutionary was a shot in the dark, but it was really the only option Grantaire had. After all, it is much easier to carry someone when they are at least conscious enough to distribute their weight evenly. 

“Enjolras, please wake up,” Grantaire whispered as so not to alert any nearby guards that there was in fact life in the musain. With his voice cracking as though he was audibly on the verge of breaking down and sobbing right then and there, he begged, “Please, let me help you.”

His arms grew weak and tired, so Grantaire had no choice but to lay Enjolras back on the ground. Grantaire crouched down next to the body and rubbed his own sore and tired arms. Again he tried nudging Enjolras whilst ever so softly muttering, “Get up, get up,” over and over. No more than five minutes passed by of Grantaire doing this, but with the national guard’s inevitable re-entry drawing nearer and nearer those minutes felt like decades. It was only when all hope seemed to be lost when Enjolras slowly blinked his eyes open. 

Enjolras slowly moved an arm, perhaps in some sorry attempt to get himself off the ground. Although Enjolras’ movement was hardly noticeable, any form of consciousness from Enjolras was good enough to help Grantaire. Again, Grantaire grasped onto Enjolras and lifted him from the floor, hoisting the body up onto his back. Enjolras was noticeably weak and could barely provide any additional support, but the small amount of support that he did supply was just enough for Grantaire to be able to get his body off the ground and to rest it over his shoulders.

Once that first problem was solved, Grantaire was soon confounded with another: getting out of the Musain and back to his own apartment undetected. He figured that it could not be too difficult, granted that he did not create any disturbances. The national guard appeared occupied with clean-up from the morning’s battle, so that would buy him some time. Grantaire made his way out of the musain swiftly and quietly with the full knowledge that any form of noise amidst the quiet, vacant scene could alert the national guardsmen to his escape. Courtesy of his many alcohol induced run-ins with the law, Grantaire knew the back streets of Paris (especially those that had led from the musain to his residence) like the back of his hand. 

He decided to set off down an alley, that was really hardly and alley at all, more of a crack between two buildings. At first he did not even think that he could fit through considering that he had a body on his shoulders, but fortunately, Enjolras’ limp frame was just slender enough to pass through as Grantaire shuffled sideways down the narrow corridor. The shadows cast by the two buildings had submerged the alley into complete darkness, so Grantaire was able to strategize and move slowly without the fear of being caught.

The further he got from the site of the rebellion, the more confident Grantaire became in his efforts. Despite the surmounting burden that Enjolras placed on his shoulders and upper back, Grantaire could not help but feel a surge of energy with every step he made. As he made it to the street adjacent to the one on which he resided, Grantaire was almost inclined to yell out about his triumphant escape for all of Paris to hear. Of course he knew better than that. Nobody could know about what he had done, or his head as well as the head of the man on his back would be in a basket shortly after the news broke. The king would make examples of them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had an idea and I am forcing myself to actually write it. Some changes might be made along the way so I will probably be updating the tags when those changes happen. Ok thank you for coming to my TED talk.


	2. Lazarus

When Grantaire made it back to his apartment, it felt to him as though he had been reunited with a long lost lover. The wave of relief that flooded over him once he had made it to this promised land was pure ecstasy. The abode itself was about as disgusting as an apartment could get. It was a cramped space with moldy walls, and a foul smell that could only be described as a mixture of wine and something like old cheese. Splatters of dry paint in various clashing colors clung to every visible surface, and wine bottles and empty paint cans littered the perpetually damp floor. Grantaire had always despised the old place, even being ashamed to bring women there to spend the night, but in that moment the old pigsty was the closest thing to heaven on earth for him. Compared to the horrors of the previous night, anything would be. His apartment, as ugly as it was, provided something that the rest of Paris could not: safety. 

Grantaire laid the body onto the old bed tucked in the dark corner of the room and let out a sigh of relief. His shoulders hurt from supporting Enjolras’ weight for all that time, and it was more than comforting to know that the most difficult part of the endeavour was well over with. The shadow from the adjacent building blocked any light from coming in through the small window over the bed, but Grantaire decided to crack it open anyway in order to let in some fresh air that he figured Enjolras most certainly would need. It was the best he could considering how he had utterly no clue as to how to nurse a hardly conscious person back to life, and feared that calling a doctor could put Enjolras in even more danger. Enjolras was the face of the rebellion after all, and it was only a matter of time until there would be wanted posters for the young revolutionary plastered on every wall in the city.

So Grantaire had to get to work with the basic medical knowledge that even he had. For starters, Enjolras’ clothes were soaked with blood and it did not take a medic to know that bleeding out isn’t a good sign. He scrambled around his apartment looking for any cloth that he could find, ripped it up into strips and began wrapping it around any part of Enjolras’ body where he could spot a bullet hole. He only found two: one that had gone right through Enjolras’ left shoulder and another that had only slightly grazed the side of his abdomen, but has nonetheless induced a significant amount of blood loss.

It was only after dressing Enjolras’ wounds, that Grantaire realized that he was in fact harboring a wanted criminal in his own home. His apartment would have to become a bunker, and he would have to go out and stock up on supplies. He never bothered restocking his house with food, water, or even more wine because he never believed he would see the place again, but fate had a funny way of acting against his predictions. So, Grantaire took to the streets of Paris in search of anything and everything that he and Enjolras could need while in hiding, and hopefully he would find the supplies needed to wake an unconscious man up along the way.

Grantaire made sure not to stay out in the streets for too long, but that proved to be more difficult than he had initially thought. Before he was considered to be a traitor of the state, he had the tendency to make conversation with every person that he encountered. At the time, it was a wonderful way to befriend his neighbors and ultimately get favors (mainly in the form of free alcohol), but his love of conversation had come to betray him. While wandering the streets in search of food, water, and whatever else he would need to survive while hiding from the police, he was constantly bombarded with greetings from neighbors and friends who were particularly curious about where he had vanished to for the past two days. 

As much as Grantaire valued the truth, telling anybody about anything that had happened in the past 48 hours could prove fatal, so he kept his greetings brief and stayed quiet. The sudden urgency of his nature and his general lack of conversation came as much of a surprise to the people he encountered outside, but he pushed his concerns about neighbors to the back of his mind. Grantaire had far bigger problems after all.

Upon entering the apartment, Grantaire bolted straight to the bed in the corner of the room. Enjolras still laid there, in the exact position in which he had been left. If it weren’t for the faint rise and fall of Enjolras’ chest, Grantaire would have assumed the man had died. Almost immediately after the wave of relief that Enjolras was still alive had hit, Grantaire was hit with another, more powerful, wave of absolute confusion. 

Grantaire scrambled for the bucket of water he had gotten from the well, and splashed a handful onto the unconscious man’s face. Although,Grantaire had not had much experience with reviving an unconscious person, he did have plenty of experience with being unconscious. More times than not, he would drink more than his body could handle, and more often than he would like to admit he would wake up to Bahorel splashing water in his face to wake him. He had almost expected Bahorel to be there with a bucket of water when he woke that morning in the musain. Although the method had worked to wake Grantaire many times, he feared that it may not be effective for the man unconscious in his bed. After all, Enjolras was not drunk; he had passed out from blood loss. 

Still he continued on splashing the water until he saw Enjolras’ eyelids begin to twitch. Slowly, Enjolras’ eyelids fluttered open, and his eyes immediately darted around the room. “Where am I?” Enjolras muttered weakly, barely conscious.

“Alive,” Grantaire answered, “Please try and stay that way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I high-key forgot about this fic not gonna lie. Sorry that this chapter is pretty short, and kind of underwhelming. I might update it if I'm feeling inspired, but honestly I don't know, and I'm not going to make any promises at this point. If you're reading this -thanks for putting up with me-


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